The luxury car brands that failed

And many of them have survived for decades and sell in large numbers today.

This story is about the would-be luxury brands that didn’t fare so well:

Delahaye was a family-owned business founded in Tours, France and focused on horse-drawn carriages before shifting to luxury car making. After the second world war money was in short supply and luxury French marques struggled, and what was once Delahaye’s strong suit quickly became its weakness as luxury cars were at the bottom of people’s priorities. Finances dwindled and the firm closed in 1955.

Napier had been going since 1808, producing steam-powered printing press machines and when Napier’s son took over in 1847, the focus was soon on coin-making machines. In 1895 the firm began tinkering with car components, which led to building race cars. After the first world war Napier produced cars with Cunard coachwork that cost just as much as a Rolls-Royce, but they were outperformed by cars that featured more powerful engines.

In 1924, Napier’s finance charts began to look poor; it soon quit car production to focus on aircraft engines, something that was guaranteed to bring in cash. Today the remnants of the company are part of the US company Wabtec.

High-end carmaker Packard beat the depression era of the 1930s by making more cars at affordable price points, which meant it could remain relevant not just in the luxury but also in mid-level cars. While other marques died off, Packard nailed it.

After the second world war Packard found competing with luxury brands from General Motors especially difficult and this led the company to merge with Studebaker in 1954. The company started making re-badged mainstream Studebakers, and the brand image suffered. The last Packard was built in 1958.

Popular with film stars, Italy’s Isotta Fraschini made limousines in the 1920s, but it later became a star itself when a 1929 Tipo 8A Castagna Transformable was featured in a 1934 blockbusting film. However the 1930s economic crisis, and then the second world war, hit the firm hard and it stopped making cars in 1949.

The company continued and in 1955  it merged with an engine manufacturer to make trolley buses. In 1996 a posh convertible concept car arrived. Despite various conjuring attempts, the luxury marque closed in 1999 for good.

Lozier automobiles were built in Detroit and were luxury cars costing as much as $7,750 back in 1910, the equivalent of $250,000 today. Lozier's top designer Frederick Chandler left the company in 1913 and started his own Chandler Motor Company, and took various Lozier executives with him.

In 1914, Lozier attempted a mid-level four-cylinder car, but it flopped. This combined with the brain drain of top staff forced it into bankruptcy just 15 years after being founded.

Peerless popularised what would eventually be standard technology such as drum brakes. It built luxury cars that competed with GM’s Cadillac; Peerless even built a V8 to compete with Cadillac’s. It then moved to construct military vehicles in the first world war.

However its very expensive cars – including ones powered by V16 engines – fared badly in the Great Depression and production ended in 1931; the company started brewing beer instead.

After making various cars over its early years, Errett Lobban Cord took it over in 1924 and in 1928 produced the Auburn Speedster, a handsome high-end roadster. There were various Speedster iterations, but they were quite impractical and in any case the Great Depression impacted sales. Not helped by some of Mr Cord’s dubious business practices, the company closed in 1937.

Trucks, fire engines, camp trailers, boats, motorcycles and bicycles, you name it, Pierce-Arrow made it. Although it had been going since 1865, it only started producing cars in 1901 and in 1904, it entered the luxury car market with the Great Arrow. President William Howard Taft ordered two Model M tourers in 1909 to be used as official White House cars.

Pierce Arrow quickly became a Hollywood favourite, but it was the only marque that never offered a lower-priced car to provide steady cash flow. A merger with Studebaker meant a strong future for Pierce-Arrow. However, the economic recession scales tipped against it, and Packard overtook it with its competitively priced 120. After just 37 years Pierce-Arrow closed its doors.

Although it helped give birth to one of the world’s most famous luxury brands in Audi, Horch itself only lasted until 1932 before it merged with other brands to form Auto Union. Luxury cars with eight-cylinder engines were Auto Union’s forte but the second world war arrived, and it became an arms-maker.

Its plants were heavily bombed and were eventually occupied by the Soviets. To salvage what was left, Auto Union executives packed up for West Germany and Auto Union GmbH was formed. The luxury-focused brands, Audi and Horch, were forced to sleep. into dormancy with the latter remaining there. Audi was relaunched in 1965, while the Horch name was used in 2022 for a top-of-the-range Audi A8L sold only in China.

France’s Delage started in 1905 and later merged with Hotchkiss, another ill-fated brand. Delage’s engines were works of art while cars like the stunning D8 120 Coupe carried the brand’s luxury image with pride. With both a drastic increase in motoring tax in France and an economic crisis, Delage hit a wall in 1935. Louis Delage was soon forced to declare bankruptcy, which soon saw him dying in poverty in 1947. Delage was absorbed into Hotchkiss and production ended in 1954. It recently relaunched with the D12, a sports car.

From metal diecasting to building full-size luxury cars, the American Herbert H. Franklin founded Franklin Automobile Co, which focused on air-cooled cars. As things began looking up, Franklin introduced new engines, one of which included a 150bhp 12-cylinder to match increasing competition from other marques. Franklin advertised it as a “supercharged” engine, but this was just a duct from a cooling fan which meant it was more of a ram-air affair.

A great idea rapidly turned into a costly mistake as the car couldn’t outhandle its peers, which led to low sales. Combining an expensive V12 with the Great Depression led to bankruptcy in 1934.

Stutz was backed by mechanical mastermind Harry Stutz, a man who developed his first car on his family’s farm while young. This eventually led to the Stutz Bearcat, a sportscar which sold over 3000 units in its first four years with other luxury machines to follow. The Great Depression hit, and sales dwindled.

Next, was a lawsuit which was filed over a breach of contract regarding engine building. Just six cars were produced for 1934 and soon, Stutz was added to the list of marques that fell victim to the Great Depression.

It was rare that an American brand could come close to Cadillac or Packard: these two were kings of luxury motoring, and many marques had attempted to compete with only a few succeeding - one of which was Du Pont. The Du Pont family had made its fortune in chemicals, and this allowed a higher expenditure and for top staff to be hired.

As a result, both style and quality were strong between 1919 and 1931. However, the Great Depression hit and even the Du Pont’s wealth couldn’t save the car marque; it closed in 1932.

Like other manufacturers on our list, France’s Salmson produced other things before cars: it made centrifugal pumps. Salmson wanted to broaden its horizons, therefore it started building cyclecars for British firm GN. Later, Salmson’s car division became a separate entity known as the Société des Moteurs Salmson and its first car soon arrived.

Through the early to mid- ‘20s, it built six different models before moving onto its new S-series model range, and while its cars grew slowly in popularity, Salmson faced France’s harsh tax policy which targeted cars with larger engines. It made its large car in 1957.

Duesenberg was founded by two brothers who first built engines and race cars and then luxury passenger cars. In 1926, the brothers partnered with Errett Loban Cord, who would help push the brand to the top of the luxury car market alongside Auburn. After just six years, one of the brothers died while the other attempted to soldier on with Cord.

Duesenberg was unable to prosper during the Great Depression and this maker of some of the world’s most beautiful cars close its doors for good in 1937.

The LaSalle brand was designed by General Motors to slot in just below Cadillac in the company lineup. After releasing its first car, LaSalle’s direct competitor, Packard, hit back with the lower-priced 110 and 120.

Still, LaSalle cars were popular, but the Great Depression hit, and production was slashed. LaSalle struggled to claw back the sales when up against Packard which was dominating the affordable luxury market, and, in the end, GM executives pulled the plug.

Despite being an innovative company Cord’s reliability was weak: its futuristic gearboxes seized, wheel bearings failed, and despite its large front grilles, engine cooling was poor. Complaints rolled in and this slowly caused the dealer base to shrink. The company met its demise in 1937 after just eight years of production.

While not a full-blooded luxury brand exactly, Borgward did make the Isabella, a luxury car that sold quite well in the 1950s. However, Borgward expanded the model into new variants such as a cabriolet, which needed added rigidity and thus production cost and sales price. Challenged by problems of its sister company Lloyd, the firm closed down in 1963, with founder Carl Borgward dying the same year.

Italian engineer Antonio Lago bought the rights to the Talbot brand name after its first demise in 1936 under the STD Motors name. In 1947, a new car known as the Grand Sport T26 arrived, but rumours were already circulating that the marque was struggling financially. To draw in more customers, a four-cylinder car soon appeared in the 1950s known as the T14 LS, which had stylish bodywork but a pre-war chassis and a poor engine: these were difficult to sell as a result.

With sales dwindling, Lago was forced to seek court protection from his creditors. Lago was able to restart production, but finances were severely damaged and eventually, Talbot-Lago was sold to Simca.

Motorcycles, bubble cars and the IR 300, the latter being a high-end GT car that would target Maserati, Ferrari and Aston Martin. The IR 300s bodywork was fine art that had been pencilled by Bertone and would be powered by a 300bhp Chevrolet Corvette V8 engine. Shortly after its next car was introduced, the Grifo, GM demanded advanced payment for the engines, something that ISO couldn’t yet afford to do.

This, combined with fierce competition and the 1973 oil crisis, put ISO in financial difficulty and Iso closed down in 1974

The Facel Vega company made pressed steel components and car bodies for Simca, Panhard and Delahaye before launching its own cars. Its first car, the FV, arrived in 1954 and it was both quick and stylish. Facel Vega used Chrysler powerplants but later switched due to the lack of four-cylinder engines on offer. Next up was the 1960 Facellia, a smaller car which used a 1.6-litre designed by a former Talbot-Lago engineer.

However, the engine had to be compliant with the strict French horsepower tax system and this meant some internals needed to be redesigned. Things weren’t quite right, and engines began failing. Volvo B18 powerplants were later brought in as a snappy replacement, but the damage was done. Phones were ringing off hooks in aftersales, and it seems the company lost money on every car it ever made. Eventually, it shut its doors in 1964. For a country that is famed for its luxury brands - Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Chanel etc. – it remains a mystery why France has never produced an enduring luxury car brand.

The Imperial name was first used on a luxury Chrysler model in 1926, but in 1955 it became a brand in its own right, focusing on GM’s Cadillac and Ford’s Lincoln. Quality control slipped when second generation cars were introduced due to them being built too quickly and components began to fail.

Later, in the 1970s, the brand was too small to fund its own platform for luxury cars so had to make do with one from the Chrysler New Yorker. This affected Imperial’s image, and the price of fuel didn’t help either. The brand was closed in 1975, though was briefly revived between 1981 and 1983.

Was Edsel a luxury brand? Well maybe – it was certainly Ford’s idea of luxury on a budget. It slotted between Lincoln and Mercury and would directly compete with GM’s Buick and Pontiac. Edsel’s were packed with innovative tech and futuristic design cues, but despite this, the public just couldn’t get on board.

Everything about Edsel was odd, including the cars’ designs and the fact that Ford management appeared to lose interest in it before it had even launched.  Build quality was poor, and then the ‘Eisenhower recession’ of 1958 saw car sales plunge. After three years and just 118,287 cars, Ford called it a day.

The Zimmer receipt was to take a 1980s Ford Mustang and dress it in a 1930s outfit. This was something of a niche and sales were small; the company went bankrupt in 1988. It was later acquired in 1996 and built 10-20 cars per year up until it became defunct in 2020. As with many strange cars, there’s still a small cult following for Zimmers.

By 1983 it was increasingly clear that younger image focused car buyers in America were lapping up snappy German sports compacts like the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes 190E. Ford’s response championed by executive Bob Lutz was to take German-produced Fords and dress them up for the American market with a new brand, Merkur.

First in the lineup was the Merkur XR4Ti, which was a Ford Sierra XR4i underneath, although the original 2.8-litre V6 was swapped out for a 2.3 four-cylinder due to American regulations. Next, was the Scorpio, which was produced in West Germany and remains one of the shortest-lived Fords, surviving for just two model years. Worse, the strength of the German currency made the cars expensive in America, while new US safety regulations forced expensive changes. Ford scuttled Merkur in 1990.

Toyota had Lexus, Nissan had Infiniti and Honda had Acura, so Mazda came up with Amati as its luxury brand. However, it was rather late to the party, and by the time it came to launch the Japanese stock market bubble had burst and the company was desperate to save money. Announced in 1991, it got cancelled just a year later before launch. Its first model, was supposed to be the Amati 500; this was launched in Europe as the Mazda Xedos6 in 1992. The first US ‘Amati’ was eventually launched as the Mazda Millenia in America in 1995.

It’s still going today, but Nissan’s luxury division had a troubled time in Europe. In 1989, Infiniti began selling cars in North America and by 2010 it had dealers in over 50 countries. It launched in Europe in 2009, but this was during a deep recession; it also initially lacked diesel engines at a time when Europe was in love with them.

Infiniti’s designs seemed to work much better in the US and Asia, and of course the brand was totally unknown which made it tough to compete with established brands like Audi and BMW. Ultimately Nissan killed the brand off in Europe in 2020.

Amati may be delightfully obscure, but few people outside Japan know about Anfini (sometimes styled as ɛ̃fini), which was Mazda’s luxury brand sold in Japan only. Its cars included the MS-6 – based on the hatchback known as the Mazda 626 in most markets - and the MS-8, a large saloon. Mazda junked all its other brands like Anfini, Autozam and Eunos to focus on the Mazda badge itself in 1997.

If you squint your eyes a bit, you can see a bit of Vauxhall/Opel Insignia or for those in the US, a Buick LaCrosse; that’s because Alpheon was GM’s attempt at a luxury brand for Korea. It was a strange moment as GM had just narrowly avoided total collapse, and had got rid of a bunch of brands like Pontiac in the process.

But Buick didn’t exist in Korea and instead of inventing it  - or launching under its mainstream Daewoo brand, GM came up with Alpheon. After modest success, GM seemed to lose interest in Alpheon, and it was dropped in 2015, having launched just one model.